Moderating-mediating Effects of Leader Member Exchange, Self-efficacy and Psychological Empowerment on Work Outcomes among Nurses

Abstract

Background: The main effects of leader-member relationship and the quality of supervisor-subordinate relation­ship are emphasized as main variables that help improve nurses’ job satisfaction and reduce exhaustion. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of the emotional intelligence, self-efficacy, and psychological empowerment on psychological exhaustion and job satisfaction of nurses using moderation-mediation effects of leader-member exchange (LMX). Methods: A cross-sectional design was carried out in three public-sector hospitals in north west of Iran during 2016. A total of 138 self-administered questionnaires were used for analysis. The main hypotheses of this study were an­alyzed through applying mediation-moderation analysis using PROCESS model. Results: The results revealed that LMX acted as a mediator between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction through converting its negative effect into positive one. The indirect effect of emotional intelligence on emotional exhaustion through leader-member exchange was strongly negative especially at higher levels of leader-member exchange. Conclusions: High quality relationships between nurses and their superiors could improve their job outcomes. The negative relationship between emotional intelligence and emotional exhausting was more significant when lead­er-member exchange was taken into account. High emotional intelligence in nurses has negative effect on job satis­faction but by mediating role of LMX the effect changed to positive. LMX partially mediated the effect of emotional in­telligence on job satisfaction, except when self-efficacy values were quite large. Psychological empowerment did not significantly moderate the relationship between emotional intelligence, leader-member exchange, and job outcome. Implications for nursing managers: It is recommended to analyze the quality of leader-member exchange in the hospitals before using them for measurement of nurses’ satisfaction and their jobs’ outcomes. Managers should also concentrate more on leader-member exchange and try to improve its quality. Future studies are needed to investi­gate the effects of leader-member exchange quality in longer follow-up periods. Key words: Emotional intelligence, Moderating mediating effect, Leader member Exchange (LMX), Psychological